Manchester United 2 PAOK 0

UEFA Europa League

Thursday 7 November 2024

red record

The context

John and I were still closing in on our elusive ninety-two League grounds. We had each visited Old Trafford many times, but never together. A group stage fixture for Ruud van Nistelrooy’s misfiring United side gave us the chance to put things right.  

The history

cotton tale

George Stephenson opened his Liverpool to Manchester railway in 1830. This venture – together with the equally new-fangled Bridgewater Canal – made many entrepreneurs wealthy, but also imposed enormous deprivation on an already turbulent working-class population. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were among those who recognised nascent revolutionary stirrings even as “Cottonopolis” spawned more than two thousand mills. 

Piccadilly palaver

The city’s rail network quickly outgrew Stephenson’s terminus behind Deansgate. A replacement at Store Street – soon renamed London Road, and now called Piccadilly – connected Manchester with Euston. It was held up by two enormous viaducts and grew in size during the century’s second half, when lack of available space led to a relief terminus, known as Mayfield, being provided nearby.

Central perk

Different companies built their own stations. Victoria was designed by Stephenson for through trains between Liverpool, Yorkshire and Glasgow, while Exchange – mostly across the Irwell in Salford, but still sufficiently close for both to share a half-mile long platform – added much-needed extra capacity. Central’s elegant arch, meanwhile, offered even more London services via Derby to St Pancras.    

Victoria principal

Engine sheds in Manchester’s suburbs could accommodate five hundred locomotives. Stephenson’s company had a depot at Longsight, beside their main line out of Store Street, while the rival Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway settled on Newton Heath. This location was convenient for Victoria and they also opened a substantial carriage works there.

canalise (Benjamin William Leader)

Successful trade needed cost-effective movement of goods. Tensions arose with Liverpool’s dock and railway authorities, whose own profit margin derived from duty paid on cargo. One solution was to canalise the Mersey and build an entirely new harbour; this apparently fantastic scheme would turn Manchester – forty miles from the sea – into Britain’s third largest port.  

attractions

The canal’s eastern end was dug out of redundant parkland. Pomona Palace once drew 100,000 visitors per year; it gave Manchester citizens convenient access to fresh air, and – along with extensive pleasure gardens – incorporated Britain’s largest concert hall. But the complex lost custom because of Belle Vue Zoo’s growing popularity, and was finally put out of business when a nearby chemical factory exploded.  

basins

Eight large basins could accommodate up to ten ocean-going vessels each. Trafford Road swing bridge separated these into equal Salford and Manchester sections, but – despite the new Ship Canal’s partisan labelling – only Pomona Dock No.1 was actually in Manchester. Five thousand dockers and labourers would eventually work there, with eighteen million tons of cargo handled annually.  

industrial

This came as bad news for local squire Sir Humphrey de Trafford. He suddenly found his stately home surrounded by ships, with arriviste industrialists its only prospective purchasers; before long historic Trafford Hall had been turned into a hotel, while five square miles of Elizabethan deer park became the world’s first – and for many years largest – industrial estate.  

The journey 

special branch

Every visit I make to Old Trafford recalls my childhood. It doesn’t help that residents-only schemes have pushed street parking beyond Seymour Grove and close to our old house. John and I met on these dark, quiet roads; most things seem smaller, but flimsy saplings I remember being planted are now thirty feet high and forcing the pavements out of shape.

Flesh and wine

session

We settled on the Quadrant for tonight’s pre-match session. Out of town fans throng every pub for miles; some places do, however, retain more local character than others. This old favourite hides away among small shops, next to a tree-lined roundabout between the cricket ground and Longford Park. It’s surrounded by seemingly endless suburban semis built during southern Manchester’s pre-War expansion.

memorial

This was boozer of choice for many United players both before and after Munich.  Legend claims that Tommy Taylor would sit here for hours, innocently drinking tonic water which landlord John Leary topped up with gin under the bar. A memorial plaque on one wall – funded by locals and regulars – commemorates all twenty-two people who lost their lives.

hot stuff

Takeaways are scarce among Firswood’s sedate avenues. Our subsequent route went along equally residential Railway Road – avoiding Lou Macari’s chippy, and a grim press of identikit food vans nearby – so we decided to dine inside. My pie was hot as volcanic magma but had cooled down somewhat when I finally made it to the Stretford End’s topmost row.

The game

hopeful

Home fans were hopeful United could break their run of straight draws in this competition. For much of the first half, however, it seemed as though Greek champions PAOK would frustrate them much as Twente, Porto and Fenerbahce had done. Both sides made themselves busy but Mady Camara’s stinging drive – tipped over at full strength by Andre Onana – was the closest we came to a goal.     

nerves

Amad Diallo calmed Mancunian nerves when his header from a precise Bruno Fernandes cross put United ahead. PAOK fought back; Andrija Zivkovic wasted Magomed Ozdoyev’s excellent through ball, and Tarik Tissoudali shot straight at Onana. But this would be Diallo’s night. He took his second – hit expertly across Dominik Kotarski after robbing Abdul Rahman Baba – quite brilliantly. 

Teams and goals

Manchester United: Onana, Dalot (Martinez 65), Evans, Lindelof, Mazraoui, Ugarte (Eriksen 65), Casemiro, Garnacho (Rashford 65), Bruno Fernandes, Diallo (Mount 81), Hojlund (Zirkzee 90). Unused subs: Amass, Bayindir, Fitzgerald, Heaton, Wheatley, de Ligt, Antony.    

PAOK: Kotarski, Baba, Colley, Kedziora, Jonny, Schwab (Bakayoko 65), Ozdoev, Taison (Shoretire 84), Camara (Despodov 75), Zivkovic, Tissoudali (Chalov 65). Unused subs: Balomenos, Michailidis, Monastirlis, Joan Sastre, Brandon Thomas, Thymianis.

Goals: Diallo 50, 77.

Attendance: 73,174.